Councillor calls Christchurch Meadows campaign 'absolutely absurd'

Lead councillor for culture and sport Paul Gittings was directing his comments at Cllr Andrew Cumpsty who was first to raise objections to a proposal – now dropped – to develop adventure golf and high ropes activities in the Thames-side park

Paul Gittings described the Christchurch Meadows campaign as 'absolutely absurd'

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A lead councillor raised the hackles of Caversham petitioners when he described efforts to prevent crazy golf on Christchurch Meadows as “an absolutely absurd campaign”.

Lead councillor for culture and sport Paul Gittings was directing his comments at Cllr Andrew Cumpsty who was first to raise objections to a proposal – now dropped – to develop adventure golf and high ropes activities in the Thames-side park.

The subject was raised at the start of the full council meeting on Tuesday night by campaigner Anke Ueberberg from the Save Christchurch Meadows Campaign, who presented a petition.

The petition urged the council to stick to the commitment “to protect Christchurch Meadows from development and retain it as an informal, multi-use, freely accessible open space at the heart of Reading and the Thames Parks”.

Ms Ueberberg described the council consultation about the leisure facilities in the park as “flawed” with 303 people supporting the plan out of just 450 responses.

She said her petition had more than 1,000 signatures from people “from or connected with Reading”.

And she called on the council to “abandon all plans for the commercial development of Christchurch Meadows”.

Cllr Gittings repeated that the leisure partners who had been considering developing adventure golf and high ropes facilities had pulled out. But he said the council would be pressing on to see if it could find a partner to provide a cafe and a boat hire facility – possibly kayaks with tuition.

He added: “It must be stressed that any new leisure development on Christchurch Meadows will be subject to the full planning process of Reading Borough Council and must be sympathetic to their setting in a public park and the surrounding residential area.”

He went on: “Finally any proposals must meet Environment Agency requirements and be subjected to a full flood impact assessment.”

But exchanges became heated when the same subject was raised again by Cllr Cumpsty in another question in which he asked if Cllr Gittings could confirm “that following huge opposition in Caversham to his scheme in Christchurch Meadows, that it is now completely erased from the council’s future plans in this location? A yes or no answer would be valued.”

Cllr Gittings replied “No”, reiterating the answer he had given to Ms Ueberberg.

Referring to the flooding, Cllr Cumpsty then asked Cllr Gittings if he had been to Christchurch Meadows lately. The park has been underwater for several weeks.

Cllr Gittings did not answer that question. What he did say was that “a future leisure facility on a public park is not going to increase flooding in this area”, and he added to Cllr Cumpsty “It’s an absolutely absurd campaign.”

He added: “I absolutely guarantee that anything we build on Christchurch Meadows or any other park the public values would not increase flood risk.”